Intent
by Akot
Summary: Suguru pays a visit to a hospitalized family member.


AN: This began as a challenge from the drabble_me community on LiveJournal, and promptly grew on me. It's too long to use there, but I'm unwilling to edit it down that much, so it's now a stand-alone ficlet. We know from the manga that Suguru's family isn't quite picture-perfect, and I felt like expanding on that. Here's a take on it.

Disclaimer: I don't own then, so don't sue a poor writer, please?

Intent

By Treble

The young man signed his name in neat, precise calligraphy.

__

Fujisaki Suguru, it read.

He was a visitor here today, like so many other days, at the hospital's psychiatric ward. She had been checked in again. His father had called a few days ago to let him know, though in the few hours it had taken him to get hold of his son, Seguchi Tohma had already heard and passed the news on. Sometimes it seemed to Suguru that his cousin knew everything before it happened, especially where it concerned family.

Looking up from the sign-in sheet, he saw the nurse give him a business-like smile and turn to lead him down the hallway. He was a stocky man, likely only a few years old than Suguru himself, with hair cut so short it might well not be there at all. Suguru had never seen him on the ward before and supposed the man must be new.

But what did he know? Suguru only came in every few months, when she invariably stopped taking her medication and she invariably relapsed. Fujisaki Aya's schizophrenia was taking it toll on her husband and son and it was the better part of the reason that, at sixteen, Suguru had moved out. There was no neat, packaged solution; no regimen to follow that would cure it for once and for all. It was hard for someone as organized and logical as Suguru to understand and, with the new-found pressures of being in a band rising to fame, the teen had had no real choice but to leave home or drop out of Bad Luck.

The ward was not a quiet place – Suguru suspected it rarely was – and loud shouts and unintelligible voices followed the pair as they moved through the way. He and the nurse eventually stopped at a door mid-way down the hallway.

"Use the buzzer when you're ready to leave," and the nurse said, reaching for the door handle and pushing the door open. And then he was gone. 

Suguru entered the room hesitantly.

"Mother?" he said, staring at his feet.

"Suguru!" she said, and he heard the sound of pages rustling and a book being set on a hard surface. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to visit, Mother," he replied, sitting down slowly in the room's small chair.

She smiled widely, but did not get out of bed.

"You look thirsty," she declared, a moment later, when he was no such thing. Her fingers began groping around the side of her bed.

"Really Mother, I'm fine. There's no need to worry about me."

Aya merely smiled at her son, fingers finding the elusive buzzer and pressing down for a moment.

"Let me take care of you, at least a little. I see you so seldom."

He tried on a smile of his own, and nodded. The smile felt fake, and Suguru knew he had yet to match his cousin Tohma's careful control over his facial features.

Just then the door opened again, and the same nurse that had led Suguru here entered the room. Idly, the teenager wondered why the man kept his hair so short. Didn't he know how unflattering it was?

"Yes?" the nurse said, his expression still business-like.

"May I have some water, please?" Aya replied, not quite a note of command in her voice, but something close. As if he were one of the servants of her household.

The nurse nodded quietly, apparently ignoring her tone of voice and closed the door. Suguru and Aya sat in awkward silence until the other man came back, a paltry portion of the liquid in a small plastic cup. Aya winked at her son when he was gone and extended the cup to him.

"Here you go. They wouldn't have served you, you're not a patient here, but I know how to get around that."

With a weak smile, Suguru took the cup and lifted it to his lips. He felt almost sick.

She watched him intently as he swallowed the lukewarm water.

"Is it tasty, precious?" she said, her eyes never leaving his face.

Suguru plastered the fake smile on his face again. It felt a little more natural this time.

"Yes, thank you."


End file.
